PA Superior Court: If Police Have Probable Cause to Search a Car, They May Search All Containers In the Car

Police May Search Bags and Purses in a Car If They Have Probable Cause to Search the Car

The Pennsylvania Superior Court has just decided the case of Commonwealth v. Runyan, 2017 PA Super 114. In Runyan, the Commonwealth sought reversal of a suppression order which found that police could not automatically search the purse of a passenger in an automobile even where police had probable cause to search the car itself. The Superior Court held that if police have probable cause to search a car, they may search all containers within the car in which they could reasonably expect to find the object of their search. Accordingly, police in Pennsylvania no longer need a search warrant in order to search bags or other containers in a car if they have probable cause for the search of the car. This is true regardless of whether there is any link between the container being searched and the driver of the car. In other words, police may search the purses and luggage of passengers in the car.  

The Car Search

In Runyan, local police officers in Mercer County observed a sedan parked with four occupants in it. Police observed the sedan in an area that the officers described as a high crime, high drug area. The vehicle was parked there late at night, so officers approached the vehicle to see what was going on.

As one of the officers approached the vehicle, he smelled the door of burnt marijuana coming from the area around the vehicle. When he walked up to the passenger side door, he could see a small bag of marijuana on the back seat passenger side floor. Naturally, the officer mentioned the bag of marijuana to the occupants of the car. The driver then attempted to crawl from the front of the car into the back seat and exit the car. At that point, the police officers asked everyone to get out of the car, handcuffed each occupant of the car, and began searching the vehicle.

Upon searching the car, the officer recovered the bag of marijuana which he had seen on the floor. Additionally, he found a number of purses in the car, and the officer searched those purposes. In one of the purses, he found a spoon, syringe, and crack pipe. The spoon had white residue on it, so the officer concluded that he had found drug paraphernalia. In another purse, the officer found a spoon with white residue on it and a number of syringes. That purse, unfortunately, also had the identification card for the defendant, Ms. Runyan.

Possession of Drug Paraphernalia

Based on the discovery of the drug paraphernalia in the purse, the officers arrested Ms. Runyan and charged her with possession of drug paraphernalia. Ms. Runyan moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that although police may have had probable cause to search the car, they were required to and did not have independent probable cause to search her purse. The trial court agreed and granted the motion to suppress. The court found that the “warrantless search of purses of passengers of a vehicle is not justified by the search incident to arrest exception.”

Police May Search A Car Without A Warrant – But They Must Have Probable Cause

The Commonwealth appealed, and the Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed the trial court’s order suppressing the drug paraphernalia. The Superior Court cited the recent case of Commonwealth v. Gary in which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that police do not need a warrant to search an automobile. Instead, because of the inherent movability of a vehicle and possibility that evidence could be lost during the delay inherent in obtaining a warrant, police may search an automobile whenever they have probable cause to do so. Probable cause means that it is more likely than not that the police will find some sort of contraband or evidence in the car. Obviously, the odor of marijuana, bag of marijuana in plain view, driver’s attempt to flee from the back of the car, and the officer’s extensive experience in making drug and marijuana arrests all combined to establish probable cause that there would be some kind of drugs or more marijuana in the vehicle. Therefore, the Superior Court held that officers could search any container in the car in which the contraband could be concealed, including Ms. Runyan’s purse.

The United States Supreme Court has already held that police may search any containers within a car when police have probable cause to do so. Therefore, following the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s decision, Pennsylvania and federal courts will now apply the same standard in automobile search cases. Police need only probable cause in order to search any container within the car.

There Are Defenses in Car Search Cases

Despite the Superior Court’s ruling, there are often still defenses in cases involving searches of cars. Although police may search the car and the containers therein when they have probable cause, it is often possible to challenge both the initial stop of the vehicle and whether the police really had the probable cause to conduct the search. First, depending on the type of stop, police must have either reasonable suspicion or probable cause to actually conduct a stop of a vehicle. If the defense can show that the police stopped the car arbitrarily or pretextually, it may be possible to have all of the results of the stop suppressed. Second, if the police did not actually have probable cause to search the car, then the results of the illegal search would be suppressed. Here, police saw drugs in plain view and the driver attempted to flee, but in many cases, the evidence of contraband is not so obvious and can be challenged. Finally, many drug possession and gun possession cases raise issues of constructive possession. In this case, Ms. Runyan made the foolish decision to store her identification card with her drug paraphernalia. However, in most cases, people do not do that. Had her ID not been with the contraband, then police would have had a difficult time establishing to whom the purse belonged without some kind of statement.  

A Philadelphia Criminal Defense Lawyer Can Help With Drug Cases  

Zak T. Goldstein, Esq - Philadelphia Drug Lawyer

The Philadelphia Criminal Defense and Drug Defense Lawyers of Goldstein Mehta LLC can help with drug and gun cases in Philadelphia. We have litigated and won countless motions to suppress and possession cases involving vehicle searches and other searches in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Our lawyers will work closely with you to build the strongest possible defense to your charges. Call 267-225-2545 for a complimentary, 15-minute criminal defense strategy session.  

PA Superior Court Finds Justification Defense Limited but Available in Felon in Possession of Firearm Case

Philadelphia Criminal Defense Lawyer Zak T. Goldstein, Esq.

Self-Defense and Justification May Provide a Defense to Felon in Possession of a Firearm Charges

The Pennsylvania Superior Court has just ruled that the defense of justification may be available as a defense against illegal gun possession charges. However, the court concluded that the defense is strictly limited only to the time during which the defendant was legally acting in self-defense. In Commonwealth v. Miklos, the defendant was convicted of a Violation of the Uniform Firearms Act under 18 Pa.C.S. Sec. 6105 for possessing a firearm which he wrestled away from a drug dealer who attempted to rob him. On appeal, the court held that although Miklos was justified in taking the gun from the drug dealer, the conviction should be affirmed because Miklos continued to possess the gun for some time after the altercation had ended.

The facts of the case are relatively straight forward. Police officers in Allegheny County arrived at the scene of a shooting and found a white male dying from a gunshot wound on the sidewalk. The soon-to-be-decedent, through a hearsay exception called the dying declaration exception, told the police that the person who shot him was named Dave. The victim had pills and $757 on him. Following some investigation, an Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office detective learned that the eventual defendant, a man named David Miklos, was an associate of the decedent. Accordingly, police arrested Miklos and interviewed him.

Miklos, who had not watched my video on why you should speak with an attorney before giving a statement to the police, waived his Miranda warnings and gave a statement to detectives. Miklos told the detectives that he would regularly buy or sell pills from or to the victim. On the day in question, Miklos went to buy pills, and the victim pulled a gun and began to rob him. The victim began to go through Miklos’ pockets. Miklos seized an opportunity to grab the gun, and the gun went off during the ensuing struggle, fatally wounding the decedent. Miklos fired the gun a second time after the decedent continued to lunge towards him.

After the shooting, Miklos moved the victim’s body from underneath the wheels of the car they had both been in, took $1,100 from the victim, picked up the shell casings, got into the victim’s car, and drove away. He threw the firearm and shell casings off a bridge. At trial, Miklos testified to roughly the same version of events.

Miklos waived his right to a jury trial and proceeded by way of bench trial. In a bench trial (also called a waiver trial), the trial judge makes the decision as to guilt or innocence instead of a jury. The judge found Miklos not guilty of homicide, but guilty of VUFA 18 Pa.C.S. Sec. 6105, which is the Pennsylvania statute which prohibits felons and people with other criminal convictions from possessing a firearm. Miklos had prior criminal convictions which prevented him from legally possessing a firearm.

On appeal, Miklos challenged the sufficiency of the evidence for his conviction on the VUFA 6105 charge. Miklos argued that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction. He argued that he lacked the requisite intent to possess the gun because he only came into possession of the gun during a struggle in which he was acting in self-defense. He argued that his brief possession of the firearm was merely to remove it from the decedent’s control, which he was justified in doing because the decedent was pointing it at him and trying to rob him.

The court rejected Miklos’ argument. The court agreed that Miklos was justified in grabbing the gun during the struggle in order to defend himself, but the problem for Miklos was that after the struggle, the gun fell to the ground and he picked it back up. The court opined that VUFA 6105 is a continuing offense and that Miklos’ possession of the gun could be justified for part of the time but not all of the time. If that is the case, then Miklos could still be convicted of the crime. Therefore, although Miklos’ initial possession of the gun during the struggle was justified under self-defense principles, the justification defense did not extend to Miklos’ decision to pick the gun back up, drive away, and dispose of it. Therefore, the evidence was sufficient to affirm the conviction. Nonetheless, it is clear that under the right circumstances, justification and/or self-defense may provide a defense to gun charges even where the defendant is legally prohibited from possessing a gun.

If you are charged with the illegal possession of a gun or other weapons offense, you need an experienced criminal defense attorney to evaluate your case, investigate for potential defenses, and provide you with all of the options. Our Philadelphia gun lawyers have successfully defended thousands of cases. Call 267-225-2545 now for a complimentary 15-minute criminal defense strategy session.  

Appealing PA Megan's Law Retroactivity Provisions

PA Megan's Law Retroactivity

As Attorney Zak Goldstein previously wrote, Pennsylvania has seen significant changes in the laws governing sex offender registration. Specifically, recent cases have provided some hope for a limited number of Megan's Law and SORNA registrants to downgrade from Tier III lifetime offenders to lower tiers depending on the circumstances of their cases and pleas. Registrants who meet very specific conditions may have the possibility of obtaining a reduced Tier if they can show that they either committed multiple Tier I or Tier II offenses as part of the same case or, in limited circumstances, that the Commonwealth has violated a plea bargain by retroactively requiring the offender to register at a higher tier. 

Potential Ways to Lower Megan's Law Tier in PA

Aside from the issues written about in that previous post, there are other ways for a person, required to register under SORNA, to downgrade their registration status or even remove it completely, and that is to enforce the plea that was bargained for at the time of sentencing. It isn't unusual for us to see cases where a defendant has specifically bargained for Tier I registration as part of an agreement to plead guilty. Pennsylvania courts have upheld that such agreements are governed by contract law and enforceable under contract law. This means that, while the offense pleaded guilty to may require higher registration, even lifetime registration the agreement, made at the time of the plea, will often be the deciding factor on how long a someone will have to register. But we've often found when someone is released from prison or from supervision they've been told their registration status has been changed to lifetime registration or from Tier I to Tier III. It may be possible to challenge such a change to one's SORNA registration requirements. However, it can be expensive and difficult, and success is never guaranteed.

information on the Adam Walsh Act (SORNA)

As of 2012, Pennsylvania substantially implemented Title I of the Adam Walsh Act, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).  SORNA requires that offenders register for a duration of time based on the tier of the offense of conviction. Specifically, SORNA requires Tier I offenders register for 15 years, Tier II offenders register for 25 years, and Tier III offenders register for life. 

SORNA requires that offenders make in-person appearances at the registering agency based on the tier of the offense of conviction. Specifically, this Act requires that Tier I offenders appear once a year, that SORNA Tier II offenders appear every six months, and Tier III offenders appear every three months. SORNA requires that each jurisdiction maintain a public sex offender registry website and publish certain registration information on that website. 

PENNSYLVANIA MEGAN'S LAW REGISTRATION TIERS

Pennsylvania has three categories of registrants for purposes of duration of registration requirements and frequency of reporting to law enforcement for verification: 

Tier I offenders, who are required to appear annually to verify registration information and register for a period of 15 years. 

Tier II offenders, who are required to appear every 180 days to verify registration information and register for a period of 25 years. 

Tier III offenders, who are required to appear every 90 days to verify registration information and register for life. 

SORNA Tier I requires offenders to register for a minimum of 15 years and annually verify registration information. The following offenses listed in Pennsylvania Statutes would require, at a minimum, Tier I registration requirements under SORNA:

18 Pa. C.S. § 2902 – Unlawful restraint (non-parental, victim under 18) 

18 Pa. C.S. § 2903 – False imprisonment (non-parental, victim under 18)

18 Pa. C.S. § 2904 – Interference with custody of children (non-parental, victim under 18)

18 Pa. C.S. § 2910 – Luring a child into a motor vehicle or structure

18 Pa. C.S. § 3124.2 – Institutional sexual assault (adult victim)

18 Pa. C.S. § 3126 – Indecent assault where the offense is graded as a misdemeanor of the first degree or higher (if punishment less than one year)

18 Pa. C.S. § 6312[d] – Sexual abuse of children (possession of child pornography)

18 Pa. C.S. § 7507.1 – Invasion of privacy

SORNA Tier II requires offenders register for a minimum of 25 years and semiannually verify registration information. The following offenses listed in Pennsylvania Statutes would require, at a minimum, Tier II registration: 

18 Pa. C.S. § 3124.2 – Institutional sexual assault (victim age 16-17)

18 Pa. C.S. § 3126 – Indecent assault where the offense is graded as a misdemeanor of the first degree or higher (if recidivist or punishment greater than one year)

18 Pa. C.S. § 5902[b] – Prostitution and related offenses, where the actor promotes the prostitution of a minor

18 Pa. C.S. § 5903[a] [3], [4], [5], or [6] – Obscene and other sexual materials and performances, where the victim is a minor

18 Pa. C.S. § 6312[b], [c] – Sexual abuse of children (production/distribution of child pornography)

18 Pa. C.S. § 6318 – Unlawful contact with minor

18 Pa. C.S. § 6320 – Sexual exploitation of children SORNA 

Tier III Offenses requires lifetime registration and quarterly verifications. The following offenses listed in Pennsylvania Statutes would require, at a minimum, Tier III registration requirements under SORNA: 

18 Pa. C.S. § 2901 – Kidnapping, where the victim is a minor (non-parental)

18 Pa. C.S. § 3121 – Rape • 18 Pa. C.S. § 3122.1 – Statutory sexual assault

18 Pa. C.S. § 3123 – Involuntary deviate sexual intercourse

18 Pa. C.S. § 3124.1 – Sexual assault • 18 Pa. C.S. § 3124.2 – Institutional sexual assault (victim under 16)

18 Pa. C.S. § 3125 – Aggravated indecent assault

18 Pa. C.S. § 3126 – Indecent assault where the offense is graded as a misdemeanor of the first degree or higher (if victim under 13 and punishment greater than one year)

18 Pa. C.S. § 4302 – Incest (victim under 13, or victim 13-18 years old, and offender more than 4 years older)

HOW OUR PENNSYLVANIA MEGAN'S LAW LAWYERS CAN HELP

Demetra Mehta, Esq. - PA Megan's Law Attorney

If you think you have been required to register for the wrong tier, please contact us to discuss your case. After a brief consultation, we may be able to advise you how to best move forward. If we think we can be of assistance we will investigate your case and offer an opinion on if a challenge to your registration requirements will be successful. We offer a free phone consultation in these matters, and if further investigation is warranted, we typically charge a reasonable initial fee to obtain court records and transcripts, investigate the case, and determine the likelihood of success. 

Charged with a crime? Our award-winning Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers have successfully defended thousands of cases. Call 267-225-2545 for a complimentary 15-minute criminal defense strategy session.

Recent Court Decisions Create More Problems for Blood Testing in PA DUI Cases

PA DUI Update: Even New, Revised Blood Test Warnings May Be Unconstitutional

Pennsylvania courts have already found that large chunks of Pennsylvania’s DUI laws are unconstitutional. Recently, judges on both the Pennsylvania Superior Court and the Philadelphia Municipal Court have found that even police warnings which do not explicitly mention increased criminal penalties for refusing a blood draw could be unconstitutionally coercive and require the suppression of the test results. As written, the state’s DUI law creates an enhanced criminal penalty for motorists who refuse blood testing and are subsequently convicted of DUI. In DUI cases where the defendant is convicted both of driving under the influence and refusing to consent to blood testing, the defendant would be sentenced as a Tier III offender instead of a Tier I offender.

Differences in Sentencing for DUI Tiers

The differences between the mandatory minimums for Tier I DUIs and Tier III DUIs are enormous. For example, a first offense, Tier I DUI requires the court to impose a sentence of six months of probation, fines, classes, and other conditions. However, there is no mandatory minimum jail sentence, and there is no required PennDOT driver’s license suspension. On the other hand, a first offense, Tier III DUI conviction requires the court to impose 72 hours of incarceration and a one year driver’s license suspension in addition to enhanced fines and other conditions. Thus, the difference between a Tier I and a Tier III can be real time in jail and a significant driver’s license suspension which could lead to the defendant losing his or her employment.

Recent Court Decisions in Pennsylvania DUI Cases

Demetra Mehta, Esq - DUI Lawyer in Philadelphia

Recently, courts have begun to strike down the enhanced criminal penalties for refusing a blood test. First, in Birchfield v. North Dakota, the United States Supreme Court held that states may not penalize a motorist for refusing a blood test in cases where the police have not obtained a search warrant for the motorist’s blood. This is because the blood test is an intrusive search of the defendant’s body which falls under the Fourth Amendment and requires a search warrant. According to the Supreme Court, breath tests do not pose the same privacy concerns because the use of a breathalyzer is far less intrusive than a blood test. Of course, this is a problem for DUI enforcement because a breathalyzer cannot detect the use of drugs.  

Prior to Birchfield, various Pennsylvania appellate court opinions and laws required police officers to provide DUI suspects with O’Connell warnings prior to requesting a blood draw. The O’Connell warnings inform the motorist that the motorist will face an increased criminal penalty for refusing the test should the motorist be convicted of both the DUI and refusal. More recently, in Commonwealth v. Evans, the Pennsylvania Superior Court held that the O’Connell warnings as implemented prior to Birchfield could be unconstitutionally coercive because the state can no longer punish blood test refusals with additional criminal sanctions. Accordingly, Evans held that defendants who were read the O’Connell warnings prior to consenting to a blood test may be entitled to have the results of the blood test excluded from evidence.

Now, in Commonwealth v. Gaetano and Commonwealth v. Bush, judges of the Pennsylvania Superior Court and Philadelphia Municipal Court have ruled that even warnings which do not explicitly reference criminal penalties could be unconstitutionally coercive and require suppression of the evidence. Last week, in Gaetano, the court addressed a situation in which a police officer informed a DUI suspect that the suspect would face a license suspension and “enhanced penalties through PennDOT” if the suspect refused to consent to a blood draw during a DUI stop. Mr. Gaetano consented to the blood test, and the test results showed the presence of a controlled substance in Gaetano’s blood.

Motions to Suppress in DUI Blood Test Cases

Gaetano’s criminal defense attorneys filed a motion to suppress the blood results prior to the Birchfield decision. The trial court denied the motion to suppress. Because the case was pre-Birchfield, the trial court did not consider whether the warnings were unconstitutionally coercive as the law at the time did not support such an argument. After denying the motion to suppress, the trial court found Gaetano guilty of DUI, and Gaetano appealed. 

On appeal, Gaetano was permitted to raise the issue of whether the warnings were unconstitutionally coercive because of the change in constitutional law brought about by Birchfield. Birchfield had not been decided at the time of the motion to suppress, so there were no findings on the record by the trial judge as to whether the warnings provided by the officer were unconstitutionally coercive. Therefore, the Superior Court reversed the conviction and remanded the case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on the coercive effect of the warnings. The court noted that whether consent is voluntarily obtained depends on the totality of the circumstances. The court opined:

In this case, a crucial component of the “totality of the circumstances” surrounding Gaetano’s consent is the warning given by Sergeant Watkins concerning the consequences of refusal. Unlike the warning we recently addressed in Evans, Sergeant Watkins did not expressly state that Gaetano would face enhanced criminal penalties if he refused consent. Instead, he referenced “enhanced penalties through PennDOT.” The record does not reveal what those enhanced penalties might be, beyond license suspension. In Evans, after concluding that the more explicit warning there was “partially inaccurate,” we “remand[ed] the case to the trial court to ‘reevaluate [Appellant’s] consent . . . [, based on] the totality of all the circumstances . . . [and] given the partial inaccuracy of the officer’s advisory.’” Here, we must do the same, recognizing that Sergeant Watkin’s warning was less blatantly inaccurate than the warning in Evans.

Therefore, although the Superior Court did not find that the warnings of enhanced penalties through PennDOT were definitively illegal, the Court did recognize that under the totality of the circumstances, they could have rendered Gaetano’s consent involuntary and therefore require suppression of the incriminating blood result evidence.

As Gaetano illustrates, police departments throughout the state of Pennsylvania began revising their warnings following the Birchfield decision. For example, the Philadelphia Police currently read two sets of warnings. First, Philadelphia Police Officers read a standard set of warnings which have been created by the State Police. The State Police warnings read:

It is my duty as a police officer to inform you of the following:

You are under arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance in violation of Section 3802 of the Vehicle Code.

I am requesting that you submit to a chemical test of blood.

If you refuse to submit to the blood test, your operating privilege will be suspended for at least 12 months. If you previously refused a chemical test or were previously convicted of driving under the influence, you will be suspended for up to 18 months.

You have no right to speak with an attorney or anyone else before deciding whether to submit to testing. If you request to speak with an attorney or anyone else after being provided these warnings or you remain silent when asked to submit to a blood test, you will have refused the test.

Second, the Philadelphia Police have created their own set of warnings which they provide in conjunction with the State Police warnings. The Philadelphia Police warnings provide:

It is my duty as a police officer to inform you of the following:

You are under arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance in violation of Section 3802 of the Vehicle Code, and I am requesting that you submit to a chemical test of your blood.

You have the right to refuse to submit to a chemical test of your blood. If you refuse to submit to a chemical test of your blood, your operating privilege will be suspended for at least 12 months. If you previously refused a chemical test or were previously convicted of driving under the influence, you will be suspended for up to 18 months.

Additionally, the fact that you refused to submit a chemical test of your blood may be admitted into evidence in subsequent legal proceedings.

You have no right to speak with an attorney or anyone else before deciding whether to submit to testing. If you request to speak with an attorney or anyone else after being provided these warnings or you remain silent when asked to submit to a blood test, you will have refused the test.

The Philadelphia Police warnings are very similar, but they also include the critical provision that the refusal may be submitted into evidence in subsequent legal proceedings.

Motions to Suppress in Philadelphia Municipal Court DUI Cases

In Bush, which actually consolidated four DUI cases, the defendants argued that even the revised warnings were unduly coercive and that the admission of the refusal into evidence against the defendant as evidence of a guilty conscience violates due process. The Municipal Court mostly agreed. The court recognized that “the base of information necessary to make a knowing refusal requires an awareness· of the consequences of that refusal.” This requires giving the suspect both accurate information and adequate information regarding the consequences of a refusal. Therefore, the Municipal Court was concerned that both the Philadelphia Police warnings and State Police warnings do not contain adequate information because they do not inform the defendant that the defendant will not face enhanced criminal penalties. This is particularly problematic because the statute which codified the O’Connell warnings requires the police to inform the motorist of the enhanced criminal penalties which are now unconstitutional following the Birchfield decision. Thus, a defendant who has actually read the law would believe that he or she would face additional criminal penalties for a refusal. Likewise, the fact that the warnings do not indicate whether silence could be used in civil or criminal proceedings but simply says subsequent legal proceedings is confusing and vague. Therefore, the court concluded that both the Philadelphia and State Police warnings are not sufficiently adequate or accurate and could lead to an unconstitutional level of coercion.  

Finally, the Municipal Court also expressed concerns that the use of silence against the defendant at a subsequent criminal prosecution could violate due process and the Fifth Amendment. Both the Pennsylvania and United States constitutions provide protections against self-incrimination – meaning that a defendant cannot be compelled to say incriminating things. However, the warnings inform the defendant that silence will constitute a refusal, and a refusal will be used as evidence against the defendant. Therefore, the Municipal Court also found that this provision of the warnings could violate due process because it essentially compels the defendant to give evidence against himself or herself.

Clearly, the court found a number of potential problems with the warnings which could lead to a successful motion to suppress. However, like the court in Gaetano, the Municipal Court concluded that the coercive effect of the warnings must be evaluated on a case-by-case using a totality of the circumstances test. Therefore, the trial court which hears the motion to suppress must look at the warnings which are actually given to the defendant and whether the defendant understood the warnings or believed that the defendant would face criminal penalties for refusing testing or remaining silent.

A Philadelphia DUI Defense Lawyer Can Help

It is clear from these opinions that Pennsylvania DUI law with respect to blood testing is a mess. Unfortunately, Gaetano is not entirely binding on lower courts because it is currently an unpublished opinion. However, it may be cited for its persuasive value. Likewise, Bush is not binding on other courts because it is only a trial court opinion. However, it is clear that there are serious issues to be raised in any case where the police have obtained a blood draw. In many cases where police do not obtain a search warrant prior to seeking a blood test, there may be strong grounds for a motion to suppress the results of the test. A successful motion to suppress in a DUI case will often lead to the dismissal of the charges or a strong chance for an acquittal at trial. If you or a loved one are facing DUI charges in Pennsylvania, it is critical that you retain an experienced criminal defense attorney who is aware of these recent decisions and changes in the law and able to use them to your advantage. Call 267-225-2545 for a free, 15-minute criminal defense strategy session.

Zak T. Goldstein, Esq. - DUI Defense Lawyer